Egypt Launches Airstrikes in Libya in Retaliation for Deadly Attack on Christians Egypt’s military says it determined the attack that killed 28 Coptic Christians earlier Friday originated with militants trained in eastern Libya By Tamer El-Ghobashy
https://www.wsj.com/articles/egypt-launches-airstrikes-in-libya-in-retaliation-for-deadly-attack-on-christians-1495832633
Egypt’s military launched six airstrikes in eastern Libya late Friday in response to an attack by unidentified gunmen who killed 28 Coptic Christians in an ambush south of Cairo earlier in the day, the military said in a video statement.
The Egyptian military said the strikes were conducted after it determined the attack on the Coptics originated with militants trained in Libya.
The strikes, the first Egypt has launched in Libya since 2015, came as President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi addressed the nation in a televised speech and vowed an aggressive response to the attack on a bus carrying Coptic pilgrims to a monastery in Minya, about 190 miles south of Cairo.
“As I address you now, a very strong airstrike has been carried out against those camps,” Mr. Sisi said, referencing camps where the unknown perpetrators of Friday’s attack allegedly trained. “Egypt will never hesitate to conduct airstrikes against terrorist camps anywhere, inside or outside Egypt.”
While Mr. Sisi didn’t mention Libya, security officials told the MENA state news agency that the airstrikes targeted militant sites near the Libyan city of Derna.
It was an unusually swift response to an incident that has so far not been claimed by any group and Egyptian authorities didn’t publicly identify any suspects.
Egypt last struck Derna in February 2015 after Islamic State militants released a video showing the execution and beheading of a group of Coptic Egyptian laborers on a beach in Libya. At the time, Islamic State had taken control of Derna, but the group has since been driven out.
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